Headstones are employed in cemeteries to mark the location of individual grave sites and serve as a medium for memorializing information about the decedent. Headstones are typically fabricated from marble or granite materials and generally weigh 1000 pounds or more depending upon their size.
The process of transporting a headstone to a grave site and manipulating it to an upright position is known as stone setting and those who perform this process must be trained in the methods for handling headstones to minimize the chance of injuring themselves or causing damage to the headstone. The stone setting process is typically performed in two steps. The first step of the process consists of transporting the headstone in a vehicle from the manufacturer to the cemetery. The second step of the process consists of transporting the headstone from the vehicle to the grave site and manipulating it into a final upright position.
Trucks or other similar motor vehicles are typically employed to transfer the headstone from the manufacturer to the cemetery. However, due to the close proximity of the headstones to one another and the possibility of damaging the cemetery grounds by the truck's wheels, the headstone often must be transported from the truck to the grave site by other means that can be maneuvered between the headstones without damaging existing headstones and the cemetery grounds. In some instances, the headstone must be transported a great distance through the cemetery and up steep hills to reach the grave site.
One method commonly employed to transport a headstone from the truck to the grave site uses a manually operated four-wheeled dolly similar to those dollies used to move large appliances. The dolly is laid in a horizontal position on the ground and the headstone is transferred from the truck bed either manually or by a crane that is connected to the truck bed. To manually transfer the headstone from the truck bed to the dolly, boards are typically leaned onto the rear of the truck bed to create a ramp between the dolly and the truck bed. The headstone is then manually manipulated from the truck bed onto the boards and is then permitted slide down the boards onto the dolly. That method of transferring the headstone onto the dolly can be quite dangerous and must be carefully performed to prevent damaging the headstone as it slides down the boards onto the dolly.
After the headstone has been transferred to the dolly, the dolly must be manually pushed or pulled to the grave site. That process may be complicated by soft or water-soaked ground conditions which tend to cause the dolly wheels to sink into the ground thus making the dolly difficult to move. In instances where a hillside must be traversed to reach the grave site, a winch is commonly employed to winch the heavy headstone and dolly up the hill. More specifically, a length of pipe or rod is inserted into the hillside at a position above the dolly. The winch is then connected between the pipe and the dolly and the dolly is winched to the pipe. The pipe is then removed and the entire process is repeated until the dolly has been transported up the hillside. That process is very labor intensive, dangerous and time consuming and can damage the cemetery grounds.
After the headstone has been transported to the grave site, it must be unloaded from the dolly. That process requires the stone setters to manually push or pull the dolly to an upright position wherein the headstone can be slid from the bottom support ledge of the dolly and onto the ground. Depending upon the size and the weight of the headstone, many individuals may be required to transfer the headstone to the upright position.
Often, the headstone must be placed onto a base or foundation member that is raised above the ground level a distance of, for example, six to eight inches. In those situations, the stone setters must either advance the dolly wheels onto a makeshift ramp usually created by stacking loose boards together or, in the alternative, may unload the headstone onto the ground and then pry the headstone onto the base with pry bars. The latter method increases the possibility of damaging the headstone or the base during the lifting and prying process.
Also, because the headstones are constantly exposed to the elements and may also be subjected to acts of vandalism, it often becomes necessary sometime during the life of the headstone to take the headstone back to the manufacturer for refurbishing or repair. In those instances, a dolly is also used to transport the headstone from the grave site to the truck. The stone setter must transfer the headstone onto the dolly and then return the dolly to a horizontal position wherein it can be pushed or pulled to the truck. It will be appreciated that the above described methods and apparatus for handling and transporting a headstone are very time consuming and cumbersome to use. It will be further appreciated that the above-described methods often result in injury to the stone setter by virtue of the difficulty in manually moving and manipulating the heavy headstone.
In the material handling industry, several devices have been developed for unloading materials from mobile vehicles. For example, a tiltable loading and unloading truck bed is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,412,882. The truck bed disclosed in that patent has support forks non-movably attached thereto that are constructed for picking up large loads such as a stack of hay bales. The position of the forks, however, cannot be selectively adjusted with respect to the end of the tiltable bed to enable one to load or unload materials at different heights. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 3,522,894 discloses a tiltable truck bed that has a forklift mechanism movably attached thereto. The vertical position of the forklift platform, however, is dependent upon the inclination angle of the truck bed and, as such would be ill-suited for transporting and manipulating headstones in the manner described above.
Other material handling devices such as the ones disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,963,070 and 5,147,170 to Detrick are equally ill-suited for performing the various transportation and manipulation tasks associated with handling headstones. In particular, the Detrick apparatuses are not adapted for travel on a variety of different terrain conditions. Also, the Detrick devices and others like them are not adapted to place an item on an upstanding foundation that is located on uneven terrain. For example, often the foundation upon which a headstone must be gently placed is located on sloping terrain. In those situations, the top surface of the foundation is typically located on an angle with respect to the ground surface. The prior apparatuses, such as those disclosed in the above-mentioned patents, all have support mechanisms that are not capable of assuming various angular positions with respect to the tiltable members to which they are attached. That is, support mechanisms of prior devices are fixed on a substantially horizontal position that is substantially parallel with the surface upon which the mobile device is traversing. Therefore, if one were to use those devices to place a headstone onto a foundation located on sloping or uneven terrain, one portion of the headstone would be held a certain distance above the foundation. Because the headstones are subject to being damaged should they be dropped a small distance onto a foundation, make-shift cribbing and/or support ramps must be manufactured in the field in order for the transport apparatus to be oriented at the proper angle. In particular, with this method, the transport device is driven onto the cribbing, thus causing the device to be tilted to an angle that substantially corresponds with the angle of the foundation. Such method is time consuming and may be unsafe depending upon the magnitude of the angle at which the transport device is positioned.
Thus, there is a need for a material handling device and method for transporting and manipulating a headstone from a horizontal transportable position to a vertical position, the height of which is selectively adjustable to various heights above the ground without the manual handling and manipulation normally associated with those procedures. There is a further need for a material handling device that can safely position a headstone onto a foundation that is located on uneven or slopping terrain.